i think that's very worrying for the united states and for the administration. but i think the far larger point is that we're right now in the middle of -- the region is in the middle of such turmoil. and we don't seem to be addressing it in any meaningful way. instead, we're talking about the death of four americans, which is while incredibly tragic is something that i think is peripheral to what's going on right now. >> well, let's go to 30,000 feet for a second, because that should be the context for the presidential debate on foreign policy. we are in the middle of the break-up of two giant state systems. we are seeing the crackup of the eurozone and the failure of the arab nation state in the arab world. and it's all happening at a time when the world has never been more interdependent. so we have all of these states now around the world, in the middle east in particular, that are too dangerous to ignore, but too expensive to fix. and that -- whoever is the next president is going to have to wind their way through that reality. we can't ignore them but we c